World Begins To Realise It's Not About Health

It was back in 2010 when I first mentioned the potential of e-cigs to show up the tobacco control industry and their lapdog politicians for what they really are, instead of the caring health-conscious professionals they pretend to be. I've said the same many times since, like this in very early Jan 2012.

To put it bluntly, any anti-smoking organisation who continues to act against e-cigs are openly admitting that they have no care for smokers' health (as if they ever did), and that can only be a good thing. 

The sooner they are seen as the prohibitively costly, self-serving tax leeches that they are, feeding the prejudices of the most obnoxious in society, warping social fabrics worldwide, while delivering little by way of net health benefits, the better for all concerned. 

The game's afoot for 2012, and I for one be watching developments with great interest.

As we approach 2014, the developments don't require any keen watching cos they're everywhere; the tobacco control industry has all but dropped the charade that their role is anything else but the professional application of good, old-fashioned moralising prohibitionism. And people are, indeed, waking up to this fact.

Thanks to New York's inclusion of e-cigs into their smoking ban, visitors to Reddit - usually comprised mostly of left of centre, big state-loving hipsters who quite like a ban on other people's vices - have experienced scales falling from their eyes like plasterwork from a 112 year old London theatre roof. Here are some crackers from the 2200+ agitated comments in /r/news.

We come up with the first realistic alternative to smoking tobacco in the history of mankind, successfully remove all harmful chemicals in it spare nicotine, and within less than 10 years we already have bans in place to prevent its use. Utterly disgusting. 

If we accept this line of reasoning on e-cigs, then it becomes precedence. We can't have reasoning like this become precedence because then it could be stretched to pull shit like banning and passing more ridiculous shit. 

The guy said that he didn't want e-cigarettes to become socially acceptable.
So it's not about health, it's about feelings. What a turd. 

10 years ago when the indoor smoking bans started getting passed there were people who said that it set a bad precedent. But people responded by saying, "Nope. Never. This is a public health issue. And we would never, ever pass a law like this if it wasn't a public health issue." (And I would agree with those people.)
But here we are. And now we really are setting a really dangerous precedent. 

I was under the impression that the "smoke" that comes out of e-cigarettes is just water vapor. If that is the case, this makes no sense at all, given that the primary goal of cigarette laws in New York is to reduce passive smoking. 

Proof that the anti-smoking movement is less about the health impacts of smoking and more about a moral crusade. 

So the smoking ban clearly had nothing to do with second hand smoke did it? 

I haven't smoked a single cigarette in my life and I hate second-hand smoke. If people start smoking beside me on a bench in a park, I stand up and leave (not without giving them an evil look).
This law is bullshit. E-Cigarettes are way better than most of the odors you can encounter in a crowded city and there are no known negative health effects.

And so on, and so on.

I think we could all see this coming a mile off. E-cigs were always going to separate the clever/altruistic anti-smokers (who realise opposing e-cigs is daft and exposes them as extremists) from the politically stupid and/or pharma-conflicted ones. Or, as a Facebook friend of mine put it this morning:

Lovely, if they carry on like this the Tobacco Control Industry is going to disappear up its own arsehole. They just keep making themselves look more and more ridiculous.

Don't they just.

But so do politicians. Despite almost universal derision and condemnation from the public over the New York ban, the vote wasn't even close, 43 in favour and only 8 against! The polar opposite of the will of the people and a stark demonstration that New York legislators are as out of touch with the public as it is possible to be. And we can say the same on this side of the pond about the idiots at the MHRA.

Despite my predicting this, I truly believed that they'd have wised up by now and am amazed that they think they will be respected for continually promoting such transparent poppycock. But hey, who am I to object? With each passing day, they further destroy their credibility while simultaneously confirming that it is we who have always been on the side of the angels, not them.

Great, innit?